ETHICS BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 643 



tion of this lack of effectiveness in the enforcement of a divine 

 decree, it has been asserted that man lost his dominion over the 

 lower world to a great extent when he lost dominion over him- 

 self; but this view is wholly untenable even from a biblical 

 standpoint, inasmuch as the promise of universal sovereignty 

 was renewed after the deluge and expressed in even stronger 

 terms than before the fall. 



Dugald Stewart admits "a certain latitude of action, which 

 enables the brutes to accommodate themselves in some measure 

 to their accidental situations." In this arrangement he sees a 

 design or purpose of " rendering them, in consequence of this 

 power of accommodation, incomparably more serviceable to our 

 race than they would have been if altogether subjected, like mere 

 matter, to the influence of regular and assignable causes." Of 

 the value of this power of adaptation to the animal itself in the 

 struggle for existence the Scotch philosopher had no conception. 



In the great majority of treatises on moral science, especially 

 in such as base their teachings on distinctively Christian tenets, 

 there is seldom any allusion to man's duty toward animals. Dr. 

 Wayland, who has perhaps the most to say on this point, sums up 

 his remarks in a note apologetically appended to the body of his 

 work. He denies them the possession of "any moral faculty," 

 and declares that in all cases " our right is paramount and must 

 extinguish theirs." We are to treat them kindly, feed and shelter 

 them adequately, and " kill them with the least possible pain." 

 To inflict suffering upon them for our amusement is wrong, since 

 it tends to harden men and render them brutal and ferocious in 

 temper. 



Dr. Hickok takes a similar view and broadly asserts that 

 " neither animate nor inanimate Nature has any rights," and that 

 man is not bound to it " by any duties for its own sake. ... In 

 the light of his own worthiness as end, ... he is not permitted to 

 mar the face of Nature, nor wantonly and uselessly to injure any 

 of her products." Maliciously breaking a crystal, defacing a gem, 

 girdling a tree, crushing a flower, painting flaming advertisements 

 on rocks, and worrying and torturing animals are thus placed in 

 the same category as acts tending to degrade man ethically and 

 aesthetically, rendering him coarse and rude, and making him not 

 only a very disagreeable associate, but also, in the long run, " an 

 unsafe member of civil society." These things are considered 

 right or wrong solely from the standpoint of their influence upon 

 human elevation or degradation. " Nature possesses no product 

 too sacred for man. All Nature is for man, not man for it." 



Man is as truly a part and product of Nature as any other ani- 

 mal, and this attempt to set him up on an isolated point outside 

 of it is philosophically false and morally pernicious. It makes 



